Blind and Deaf
by Farla
Summary: A pokemon watcher named Karen is traveling through the forest when she comes upon three pokemon, two of which are dead. The sequel to Dark Battle
1. Finding

This is the sequel to Dark Battle 

This is the sequel to Dark Battle. If you have not read that yet, you don't have to right now. You can read this first, then read Dark Battle. However, I would appreciate that you read both stories.

Blind and Deaf.

Karen walked cheerfully through the forest, enjoying the quiet. Only a few pidgey's songs broke the stillness.

As a pokemon watcher, Karen was paying close attention to her surroundings. Unfortunately, nothing interesting was going on. The pidgey, caterpie, weedle, and other forest pokemon were all normal sized and colored. In fact, the only odd thing she managed to find was the fact that there weren't any spearow, which wasn't really odd or even important to anyone other then her. She was making a map of pokemon locations and would be returning along this route next year to see what had changed. She had just come from Applegrove City and was more then halfway to the next town.

Karen began to whistle along with the pidgey, hearing each individual song. Suddenly, she broke off. _Did I just hear something?_ she wondered. Holding her breath, she waited, focusing. Her keen ears picked up the sound again. Labored breathing, like a pokemon's after a fierce battle. But there hadn't been any battles in the area, or she would have heard that (and, of course, if she didn't, she would have noticed the wild pokemon's reactions. Karen wasn't an amateur.)

She walked quickly in the direction of the breathing. Her steps sped up when she noticed the closer she got, the quieter the other pokemon in the forest became. Finally, nearly running now, she burst into a clearing.

Three pokemon lay on the ground. Two were dead, and it was the third's gasps she had heard. Before putting the living one into a pokeball, she snapped a quick picture before running to the pokecenter. She had a great memory, but in a situation as strange as this one clearly was, a small detail that was missed could be necessary to understand what had happened.

After all, it wasn't everyday you saw two houndour and a golduck, let alone together. To deepen the mystery, the dead houndour had two casts on its legs.


	2. Realization

"Is this your houndour 

Read previous disclaimer. (or, if you don't like it, I have plenty of other disclaimers by now. Over 50, in fact. So I think everyone should just accept that I don't own pokemon. Wait, was that a disclaimer?)

"Is this your houndour?" asked Nurse Joy.

"No. I found it out in the woods. It was really weird, and I don't under stand what happened. I took a picture because I didn't have time to sketch it, but I don't understand what it means at all."

"Why did you take the time to take a picture at all?"

"The scene was so strange. I felt sure that if I didn't I would miss some small but important thing."

"Can I see the picture?" asked Nurse Joy. "I have experience with pokemon, so maybe I can understand it."

Karen took the picture out. It had three pokemon on it, a golduck and two houndour. One of the houndour had casts on two of its legs, and was covered in water. The golduck's side had been brutally bitten, and the second houndour was bloody and looked as if it had been beaten. "At first glance, it looked simple. It's clear the dead houndour was killed by the golduck. If the other houndour wasn't there, I would think that the dead houndour attacked the golduck, giving it that fatal wound, but before the golduck died it blasted the houndour with water and killed it. After all, it makes sense that a dark type might be so overcome with bloodlust that it attacked without checking if it could actually win. Even then, I don't understand what the casts mean."

Nurse Joy frowned over the picture. "Could the golduck have been fighting both of them? It beat up the first houndour and then got bit by the second one, then blasted the second houndour with water."

"That's what I thought, but the wounds on the houndour I brought in don't look like the golduck did it. See here? -" she pointed to where the still-living houndour lay. " There are three sticks. Those two pieces show that there were originally two sticks, and one broke. It looks like something beat the living houndour and left it to die, which implies a fourth creature was there."

"Perhaps the golduck was beating the first one, and then the second one appeared and fought. Yet that doesn't make sense, because golduck's own claws would be more effective."

"Yes, and also golduck is too strong."

"What do you mean, too strong?" asked Nurse Joy.

"The damage was mainly done through sheer repetition. The creature wasn't as strong as a golduck, or the wounds would be deeper. In fact, I'd bet a person did this."

"What! Why?"

"It would make sense that a person would need to use a stick, because we don't have claws. Strangely, there is no sign that the first houndour fought back. The injuries show that the houndour was beaten for a while, giving it more then enough time to fight back or escape. I think its ribs are broken, but it doesn't look like it was hit in the head at all."

"Why would that matter?"

"Well, the only plausible reason for it not attempting to escape or fight back would be that it was stunned. Yet as far as I can tell, it wasn't stunned, so why did it just stay there?"

"Well…" Nurse Joy looked hesitant. "If the pokemon was attacked by its trainer, it might decide not to try to escape. I've never understood it myself, but for some reason pokemon who are abused almost never fight back. But it is quite unlikely that a pokemon would allow its master to **kill** it, so that can't have happened either."

Karen stared absently at the houndour inside the glass case all critically injured pokemon were put in. The houndour was already starting to move feebly. Something gleamed on its neck.

"Nurse Joy, look! What's that on its neck?"

Carefully, the nurse opened the glass and reached in, easing the collar off the houndour's neck.

The leather was bloody, and the small metal tag was also encrusted with it. That was why Karen and Nurse Joy hadn't noticed it.

Before they could read what it said, the houndour stood up.

"No! Houndour, you have to lie back down! You're very badly hurt!" cried Nurse Joy.

Houndour's eyes reflected confusion. Karen could clearly see that something had upset it badly.

"Hound? Hound hound dour? Houndour!" it wailed. Gathering its strength, it leapt away.

And smashed into the ground. It was too weak to be able to land properly.

"Houndour, come back here!" called Karen, jumping up to try to grab it.

She managed to grab it, but it still started to struggle away. Once it wriggled out of her grasp she tackled it, praying she wasn't going to do that much more damage and that it wouldn't rip her apart for this.

Very, very strangely, it didn't attack her. Dark types were, after all, quite aggressive, and could often be cruel. The amount of pain it had to be in would have driven the calmest pidgey to violence. Yet it just lay there, panting. She got up but it instantly tried to get away again.

"Houndour, what's the matter?" asked Nurse Joy; bravely stroking it's head and hoping it didn't know crunch.

It started to glow. Karen started to move away instinctively, then realized it was evolving and jumped off it. She knew what houndour evolved into, and she knew more then she wanted to about it's evolved form.

"Hound….houn…doom…DOOM!" it cried, it's throat convulsing. "Hound… hounwh…"

"What are you trying to tell us? We can't understand you, I'm sorry."

"h…hound…thiph."

"What?" said Karen, shocked. It sounded like the houndoom was actually managing to speak sounds other then it's own name!

"Thip! Thip, thip! Houndh cdoom thip!"

Nurse Joy and Karen were baffled. Then suddenly it dawned on them. "Type?"

The houndoom nodded, apparently not up to speaking again. 

"You can type?"

This question seemed to upset it more.

The keyboard was brought, the story told. Yet everything is open to interpretation. And when you believe that the storyteller lies, there is little you cannot dismiss.

Out of a twisted tale of blind obedience to creatures known as god, of battles, pain and death, the only parts that they understood and felt to be real were the parts they knew of in the world.

And so they called her trainer, and he came, after denying knowledge to what had happened, saying his pokemon had ran away.

They ignored the final part she typed, scarcely even noticing she was still typing as they talked back and forth about what they should do.

[I do not understand you] she wrote, careful not to omit words or make mistakes. [You are gods, all knowing. So why is it you did not know what had happened, when my brother and golduck died? Why did that god, once, say so many thinks about dark pokemon that were not true about me? You are gods, invulnerable, so why do the gods, you and the others, fear me? Why did the healing god make my brother stand as soon as he was able, made him walk with casts, when she never did that to any other pokemon? Why did the healing god think I would hurt her? Why? You are gods, all powerful. Why do you not understand, why do you not know? I know I am not very smart, I know the gods are much smarter and better then me, a stupid weak pokemon, but why] and here she paused, not knowing how to put it in words [ did my God kill my brother, why did my God lie, why did my God chose to kill me?]

They didn't understand. They thought she was delusional, telling a lie. After all, she was just a pokemon. She had been badly injured. And, most importantly, she was, after all, a dark type. Karen, a pokemon watcher, someone who pays close attention to what they see and hear, she did not see what had happened, she did not hear the truth in the houndoom's words. Why?

The only person blinder then one who cannot see, the only person deafer then one who cannot hear, is someone who has chosen to ignore what they see and hear.

Her 'god' came, of course. He had no idea of how she had lived through what he had done to her, but he didn't want to leave loose ends. He really shouldn't have bothered, since no one cared or believed her.

Nurse Joy had forgotten to tell him that his houndour had evolved.

Damien walked slowly down the hall to the room they had locked her in. He opened the door cautiously. "Houndour? Are you in here?

She looked out at him, sad and confused, her eyes glowing red in the darkness. Damien swallowed his fear -after all, it was only a pokemon, and hell, this one had let him kill it, it wouldn't attack him- and stepped inside, almost closing the door and turning on the light.

When he saw her, he was afraid she would attack and tried to escape. By accident, he backed up, slamming the still-locked door shut. His throat tightened in fear as he struggled to open the door, unable to call for help or command his pokemon to stay away.

She didn't attack at first, and came walking up to him sadly, ready for whatever he did to her, but he thought she was attacking. Perhaps it would have been different if she had not evolved. He would not have been so scared, and she might have been able to dismiss everything she had heard as her own lack of understanding, her stupidity. Most importantly, evolved pokemon see things differently. When he sent out another pokemon to defend himself, she realized, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he feared her. And a god is not afraid.

Damien screamed.

When Nurse Joy came in after hearing the cries, Nightflame looked up from the mangled carcass that had been her trainer, and bolted out into the darkness. 

Well, I'm glad that Nightflame's trainer finally died. He really, really deserved it. In fact, I had this in mind ever since I ended Dark Battle, but I was busy and didn't get to it for a while.


End file.
